How to Avoid Another Syrian Civil War
In December, a band of rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shocked the world by ousting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. HTS’s leader, Ahmed al-Shara, created a government to oversee the country’s transition. Shara is a former jihadist who once led al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. Nonetheless, U.S. President Donald Trump soon threw his weight behind him, describing him as “tough” and “attractive” after meeting him in May. Since then, the United States has suspended sanctions against Syria and issued statements in support of Shara’s interim government.
Since Shara assumed power, he has courted foreign support by disavowing jihadism and raising the prospect of normalizing Syria’s relations with Israel. Such rhetoric, combined with his relatively successful rule over Syrian Sunnis in Idlib Province during the final years of the civil war, persuaded current and former U.S. officials that Shara was the man for the moment.
Today, Syria is once again racked by violence, and Shara’s coalition includes unreformed jihadists. The problem with Washington’s Syria policy is not that it backs a former al-Qaeda ally but that it endorses Shara’s vision of centralized rule over a diverse and sectarian country riven by deep mistrust. In July, the U.S. special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, went so far as to rule out U.S. support for any sort of federal arrangement, such as allowing for local control of policing.
The transitional government in Damascus has fiercely repudiated federalism, which it sees as a prelude to anarchy, state disintegration, and the loss of HTS control. Nearby examples hardly inspire confidence: Lebanon’s consociational system and Iraq’s federal one are marginally functional. And some of Shara’s allies believe it is the prerogative of Syria’s Sunni Muslims, who make up a majority of the population, to rule over religious minorities.
